Brian Staveley - The Providence of Fire

Just when he thought they would never stop, they did. One moment he was jolting along, rehearsing yet another possible escape attempt, the next his horse slowed to a walk. He half raised his head, realizing they were on the outskirts of an enormous camp, the api packed as closely as trees in a forest. His taabe led the horses through the tents, pausing occasionally to trade words with the other Urghul, to banter or ask a question. People seemed curious about the prisoner tied up and slung across the horse, and more than once Valyn felt his ribs prodded by the butt of a spear.

When they finally stopped, he was cut free with the same lack of ceremony as always. Legs numb, arms numb, shoulders screaming in their sockets, he rose slowly to his knees, then staggered to his feet. When he finally raised his head, he stared.

On every hill in every direction, the Urghul were shouting to one another as they hobbled horses and unloaded the poles and hides for their api . This was new. Valyn spat a bolus of blood, crouched, then stood once more, trying to work some feeling back into dead legs. He expected his taabe to punch him in the gut or sweep his legs with a contemptuous kick. Instead, the youth seized him by the hair and dragged him through the throng of people and horses. Valyn staggered behind, refusing to fall, trying to see through the haze of his exhaustion and pain, to understand what was happening. For weeks he’d been waiting for a break in the routine, a new sort of opportunity, and now it had come.

When they’d traversed half of the unfolding camp, the taabe finally shoved him to the earth with a grunt, kicked him in the head one final time, then turned and stalked off without a word. Valyn hauled himself to his knees to find Huutsuu leaning on a long lance, head cocked to one side, blue eyes fixed on him. She smiled a slow, vulpine smile.

“Still alive,” she observed.

Valyn nodded silently.

She lowered the lance in a fluid motion, leveling the shining tip at his midsection. With a casual motion she prodded lightly at his ribs, his shoulders, his stomach, his crotch, drawing blood with each contact, lifting his blacks from his emaciated frame.

“We have Hardened you,” she said. “Kwihna will be pleased.”

“Kwihna can fuck himself,” Valyn replied wearily. “Where’s my Wing?”

“They, also, we have Hardened.”

Valyn debated seizing the lance as it loitered around his chest, using it to pull the woman off-balance, then wrapping his bound hands around her throat. Huutsuu was fast-he remembered that from the first night in the rain-but he was faster. Or he had been, before spending the better part of a month lashed to a horse. Now, he wasn’t sure. He’d managed to stand, but his legs wavered beneath him and his fingers felt weak and stupid when he tried to clench them into fists. His belly might have been made of mud. The weakness and helplessness were infuriating-years of training scrubbed out in a few weeks-but they were real. He’d managed to stay alive this long. Little point in getting himself skewered now. Besides, Huutsuu had said the others were hardened. Hardened wasn’t killed.

“Where are they?” he demanded.

She nodded past his shoulder, and he turned to find a young ksaabe prodding Gwenna forward, a bared knife at her back. For the first time in what felt like years, Valyn smiled. Gwenna was filthy and battered. Both eyes were swollen half closed, the sockets fading from purple to brown, one cheek crusted with blood. She was battered but awake. She was walking. Valyn glanced at the ksaabe behind her, and his smile widened. The Urghul woman had a fresh bite mark on her own cheek, a gash closing above her eye, and fury in her eyes. When they reached Valyn, she smacked Gwenna across the head with the pommel of her knife, then kicked her legs out from beneath her. Gwenna twisted as she hit the ground, lashing out with her own foot, but the ksaabe danced back, spit in her face, then snapped something angry at Huutsuu.

“I am going to slaughter that little Urghul bitch,” Gwenna snarled, rolling to her stomach, then shoving herself to her knees. “I’m going to kill her, then eat her.”

“Looks like you already made some headway,” Valyn observed.

Huutsuu just laughed and flicked a dismissive hand at the younger warrior.

“You look like shit,” Gwenna said, turning her attention to Valyn with a frown.

“You’re no princess,” Valyn replied. “You seen any of the others?”

The others, as it turned out, were in similar condition-beaten, battered, but alive. One by one they appeared out of the turmoil, each escorted by an Urghul. Talal seemed the most hale, which made sense-he would have offered the fewest insults. Laith’s captor, on the other hand, had leashed him with a length of rawhide, the cord leaving angry welts ringing his neck. Despite his wounds, the flier still managed a fierce grin.

“This is my liaison, Amaaru,” he said, gesturing to the iron-jawed taabe behind him. He turned to the warrior. “Am I pronouncing your name correctly?” The youth took a swing, but Laith ducked. “He tells me that his name means ‘Horse Anus’ in the proud tongue of his people, and he has been a most gracious host.”

Annick showed up with a rough sack over her head, which spoke eloquently to her level of resistance, but Pyrre, evidently, had rattled the Urghul worse than any of them. She arrived last, arms lashed to her sides, preventing all movement save the slightest twitching of her fingertips. Instead of one guard, she had four, two men, two women, all older than those assigned to Valyn and his Wing, ringing her with daggers drawn.

“All right,” Laith said, raising an eyebrow at the woman. “It galls me to say this, but clearly you win.”

“What did you do to earn them?” Valyn asked, gesturing to the warriors.

She tried to shrug, but her bonds truncated the gesture. “I introduced a number of our newfound friends to the god.”

“Which god is that?” Valyn asked. “I’ve had about enough of Kwihna.”

Pyrre’s face hardened. “So has Ananshael.”

“Five,” Huutsuu interjected with something that might have been admiration. “Three taabe, two ksaabe . She killed five.”

“It’s not as though you’re going to run out,” Laith said, nodding to the thousands of Urghul milling around them.

“And yet, one must draw a line somewhere,” Huutsuu replied, eyeing Pyrre. “Five,” she said again, shaking her head. “I could grow to like this woman.”

“And you haven’t seen the half of my talents,” the Skullsworn replied, raising a coquettish eyebrow. “You’ve been wasting your time dallying with these … boys of yours.”

Huutsuu laughed, a rich, full sound. “If I took you to my api, I might never come out.”

“You could tie me,” Pyrre suggested.

“Tying you has failed several times already.”

“Enough of this horseshit,” Valyn cut in. Guilt throbbed in his bones, guilt for allowing his Wing to be captured on his watch, for failing to do anything to break them free, and meanwhile Huutsuu and Pyrre were trading smiles and innuendo as though they were browsing the Lowmarket on a lazy summer afternoon. The Skullsworn, for all her sleek urbanity, was no better than the Urghul savages. They were blood-drunk killers, all of them.

“Pyrre, let me handle this,” he continued. “Why are we stopping? Where are we?”

Pyrre frowned at Huutsuu apologetically. “Valyn forgets from time to time that I am not a part of his Wing. He takes his work very seriously.”

“ I haven’t forgotten that you’re not on the Wing,” Gwenna said, “and if you don’t stop talking, I will stop you.”